Ray O'Shaughnessy has been knocking on the cyclocross door all season and on Sunday he broke through to claim the rare scalp of Robin Seymour in Dundrum, south Dublin (Photo: Sean Rowe)
By Brian Canty
Sunday’s Fixx Coffeehouse Cyclocross Series round five winner, Ray O’Shaughnessy believes the upcoming National Championships in Belfast will be a battle for third place.
The 30-year-old Cuchulainn CC rider, who at the weekend had the distinction of beating Robin Seymour - one of the two red-hot favourites for Sunday’s title showdown - said he’d be delighted with third place on the podium.
“There are seven or eight who will challenge for it,” he said.
When asked if defending champion Roger Aiken and multi champion Seymour were beatable, O’Shaughnessy replied: “Only by themselves I’d say.”
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“To be on the podium with them two boys would be an honour. There must be seven or eight guys who can get third place; it could be any one of us. There’s a good group of us there battling for that but we all know one mistake and that’s it, someone else will take third.”
Of those most likely to contend are: former An Post Chainreaction man Ronan McLaughlin; Tim O’Regan (DID Dunboyne) is pushing closer every week and took third in Dundrum last Sunday; Ryan Sherlock can’t be discounted, and the likes of Glenn Kinning, Evan Ryan and Anthony ‘Zippy’ Doyle are expected to be there or thereabouts.
“There’s no major secret to it,” said O’Shaughnessy of cyclocross racing.
“You just have keep it smooth and steady all the way around and hope you don’t get bike trouble. Hopefully I’ll be okay because I’ll be gridded up near the front, I’ll be up there and just doing my best to stay up there.”
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He said Sunday’s win was as much a shock as a major confidence booster.
“I was surprised yeah,” he said of his first cyclocross win and his scalping of Seymour.
“I didn’t really think I was going to win, I wasn’t very confident of winning until the very last corner when I looked back and saw I had a gap. I had a gap of about 10 or 15 seconds throughout the last lap but didn’t believe I was going to win until the very end.
“I saw Robin behind so I expected him to come back – he’s just that good. I couldn’t believe I won.
“The wind suited me though, a lot of the lads had deep-section wheels and were catching a lot of wind on the corners and I just had shallower wheels so I had a wee bit of an advantage there and I was feeling good too.
“I’ve been doing ‘cross a few seasons now, I’ve got a few races behind me but this is the first year I’ve had a spare bike for it and taken it kinda serious. I do the four or five races per season but that’s it.
“It’s just good to keep up the speed in the winter because I don’t particularly like long road spins training in the winter.”
O’Shaughnessy said that he’s hoping that the cross season can prepare him for another tilt at the An Post Rás in May.
He rode with the Lough Prague Charter team in last year’s race – a race ignited by his teammate Roger Aiken – but crashed out on day two.
“I remember it well; someone on front of me just went down and I had nowhere to go so I ended up in a pile on the ground and hit my head hard. I was a bit dazed after it and the doctor diagnosed concussion so that was me gone for the week then.
“It was gutting to miss out because I was feeling good enough and Roger was in the team and going very well and it would’ve been nice to be part of that. I missed six great days on the bike but maybe this year I can make up for it.”
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